Born and raised in
Newark,
New Jersey, Cohen received her BA in political science from
Mount Holyoke College in 1976 and her MA in Hebrew Letters from the New York campus of
Hebrew Union College, where she was ordained in May 1984. Moving to Connecticut that same year, she spent the ensuing decade as the first woman rabbi at
Reform Judaism congregations in
Greater Hartford. Cohen received the inaugural
Hartford College for Women's Pioneer Woman Award (1985), organized the first Conference for Clergywomen of Greater Hartford (1986), and served as co-president of the
Women's Rabbinic Network from 1991 to 1993. She also hosted the first
HIV/AIDS interfaith healing service at any Greater Hartford synagogue. After moving to
Florida with her husband, Moshe Cohen-Gavarian, and two sons, Cohen worked as the regional director for the
Union for Reform Judaism from 1997 to 2007. From 2007 to 2012, she served as senior rabbi at Temple Israel of
Greater Miami. She received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in 2009. She started her own company working as a hospice chaplain before retiring in 2018. == References ==